Hello family!
I am just marvelous this week! I played tennis with a ward member. He is the
one who is related to the Ensign's. Pretty cool guy. He wants to play a lot now.
haha Hopefully we will hit again on Wednesday. Six am sharp. Did you see the
racquet I played with? Super retro babolat, pure control. It was the forerunner
to my weapon of choice. Unfortunately, it was just the team version so it
wasn’t weighted how I prefer. Oh well...
The week has gone well. We made more contact with our
investigators. We did end up teaching one. We painted and then he was called to
go somewhere and had to leave. But we persisted... only a few days later we
returned to mow his lawn and then we shared the message. We shared with him the
restoration. He wants us to believe that he is a devout Catholic but he seems
pretty open minded to me. We committed him to begin reading the Book of Mormon
and pray about the restoration. We will see how the story unfolds.
On Wednesday, I went on exchanges with Elder Urses, the new
district leader. He is Elder Barzee's companion. Super chill guy. I convinced
him to come to the gym with me and that was the start of a great day, as usual.
We had a great study session as we prepared to teach families later that day. First up, one guy is a fantastic guy. He
feels the message is true but he wants to learn more before committing to be
baptized. We had a great discussion with him and he accepted the invitation to take
his study more seriously. After following up with his fiancé at church yesterday,
we found that things have been going well. He hasn’t missed a night. We will
meet with him tomorrow and find out more. They are to be married the morning of
the 5th I believe. Exciting times…
And now we are on to this girl. She has been difficult to meet
with lately. But with her awesome member family returning from Ireland,
she was at church once more. Great to see her again. We chatted for a bit and
we are hoping to set up an appointment with her soon. Should be cool. She is
still reading the Book of Mormon. Seems to be good. She doesn’t get married
until December, which is good. Her impending family in law seems a little over
the top.
There is so much that happens in a week it is hard to remember
everything. I forgot to talk about the one family... haha
We did meet with them too. They are interesting. He is a strong Catholic
lawyer combo. He asks a lot of questions. They got into some pretty deep
doctrine before we turned that ship around and told them once more that they really
need to read the Book of Mormon. These people... looking beyond the mark...
Oh yeah! So we met with another family recently. She is a recent convert. We met them for dinner at the bishop's home. After a
delicious dinner we shared with them a bit about what we believe. They are
super prepared to receive our message. The lesson went well and they seemed to
really connect with what was being taught. They left excited to read the Book
of Mormon. Fast forward to this week. Her sister was in a terrible
accident. Truck verses golf cart. Unfortunately, she was in the golf cart. She
really messed up her lower leg as she was thrown from the golf cart some
distance and landed on a barbwire fence. She has undergone a few surgeries to try and repair the damage but it is still unclear how long she won’t be able to walk. It wasn’t a pretty wound. When she showed
me the pictures it took me right back to my days in sports med. You could see
that the muscle was partially severed and the bone seemed to be barely
visible. But she is alive. We took the opportunity to go over with the bishop
and give her a priesthood blessing. So that’s neat. For the closing prayer my
companion looked at me and mumbled something. I assumed he volunteered to give
the closing prayer, along with about half of the other people in the room. We
were wrong. After he had apparently asked me to offer the prayer, we sat in
silence for a fair amount of time waiting for someone to begin. You could have
heard a pin drop. haha After a good laugh we got it sorted out and we left a
blessing on their family as they are going through a difficult time.
Great Grandma Hinkle- I am glad to know that you are reading my
letters as well. I heard that you noticed that my frequent, almost overbearing
use of "haha" denotes that there is more to say. That is spot
on. I wish I could describe some of my experiences in greater detail. I am
limited by my writing skills, communication skills in general, and the time I
have to write. The situations that I am in are priceless and I can only
wish that each day of my mission was a tv show. I am quite certain that the
only way for you guys to really understand and comprehend the different moments
I have would be to see them. If these two years were a movie it would be a
spiritual, comedy, action, drama, comedy show. Yes, I know, I said comedy
twice. It was for emphasis. Now that I think about it, I should emphasize the spiritual
aspect as well. Maybe the action...
I think my time is up pretty soon. It was great to hear from you
guys again. I wish you the best as you guys do what ever you do. Hopefully all
is well. You guys look tan in the pictures you sent me. I am too... but only my
face and forearms. haha It’s all good though. I’ll have the summer after I
return to get the tan back. I have to say that it is just so great to be a
missionary. Life is good. Never a dull day. I get to do a lot of good things
and I am really enjoying the opportunity to be in this position. It hasn’t
gotten old yet and I do not expect that it will. I'll just keep working hard
and having fun. Talk to you guys next week.
Love you guys,
Elder Hinkle
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